Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali (Sunjata)

Throughout the text multiple seers foretell Sundiata’s coming or affirm his divine right to kingship. Most prominent among these prophesiers is the Sangaran hunter-seer who meets Naré Maghan at the beginning of Chapter 3. This hunter is the first to proclaim the coming of a son who will be the greatest king in Mandinka history (5-6). Some figures in Sundiata, such as Sundiata’s father Naré Maghan, show their wisdom by heeding this prophecy and ensuring that Sundiata is named his heir. Others, such as Sassouma Bérété, vainly try to work against this prophecy by subverting the king’s demands and establishing her own son as heir. These acts only push Sundiata more directly toward his course, as his exile enables him to amass an army of allies capable of defeating Soumaoro. In this way, as in most myths and folktales dealing with seers and destiny, the Sangaran hunter’s prophecy is inevitable and comes true despite any human acts to subvert it.

The inevitability of prophecy is most succinctly expressed in Chapter 5, where destiny is represented as one of god’s mysteries, an unavoidable event that even kings and queens can do nothing to stop (15). In this chapter Naré Maghan loses faith in his son’s future, but wise men like his griot and the blacksmith-seer of Niani remind him that man is “impatient” against destiny and can never understand fate in its full course (16). Though the prophecy comes to fruition as slowly as the silk-cotton tree emerges from a seed (16), it is still inevitable. This understanding of fate reaffirms Naré Maghan’s faith in his son’s future.

The relationship between men and women in Mandinka society is highly conventionalized. Women are responsible for domestic tasks and the care of children, while men hunt and provide food. Mandinka society is also polygamous, and the relationship between half-siblings is institutionalized in the fadenya-badenya system, with fadenya meaning “father-child-ness” and badenya meaning “mother-child-ness.” In this system children of the same father but different mothers (fadenya) are expected to be rivals, as is the case between Sundiata and Dankaran Touman. Children of the same mother (badenya), on the other hand, are expected to be loving toward each other, as is the case between Sundiata and his half-sister Kolonkan. The traditional gender roles and the institutionalization of fadenya-badenya has potentially disenfranchising effects for the women in Sundiata, causing rivalries over inheritance rights between wives of the same husband. This is expressed in Sassouma Bérété’s animosity toward Sundiata and Sogolon.

Sundiata is a narrative dominated by male ideals like strength, military conquest, and kingship. Nevertheless, the epic presents a nuanced picture of female strength by providing several examples of women who, despite their lack of overt agency within Mandinka institutions, play crucial roles as aids and strategists both for and against Sundiata. Sassouma Bérété’s work to establish her son Dankaran Touman as king and thereby herself as de facto ruler of Mali is only one example. Even earlier in the text, descriptions of the buffalo monster of Do, an old woman who has transformed herself into a beast to seek vengeance on her brother (8), reveals that women are quite capable of causing major disruptions to male systems of hierarchy.

On the constructive side, Kolonkan’s good sense and hospitality leads the Mandinka search party to Sundiata’s home in Mema (43-44), and it is Sundiata’s half-sister Nana Triban’s use of feminine wiles to deceive the powerful Soumaoro that leads to the discovery of his magical weakness (57-58). This final example is particularly important, as Nana Triban is the daughter of Sassouma Bérété and should therefore despise Sundiata like her mother. It is her personal sense of righteousness that leads Nana Triban to shirk the conventions of fadenya and come to Sundiata’ aid, showing how female agency is both hidden and potent in Mandinka culture.